


Lonely at the Top

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Seven H/C Bingo Card [51]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8808763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: When Viktor is five years old they tell him there's magic in him.
Viktor knew about his own magic long before he knew about Yuuri's.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just as I have a lot of feelings about different types of ice skaters, despite the fact that I have never been on figure skates or speed skates, I also have a lot of feelings about how Russia treats its Ice Mages in this AU lol whoops.
> 
> Unbeta'ed. Written for H/C Bingo Round 7.

When Viktor is five years old they tell him there's magic in him. They strap hockey skates to his feet and put pads on his shoulders and stuff a stick in his hands and put him to work. He's Russian, and Russian Ice Mages are hockey players. That's the rule, that's how it works.

It doesn't work.

There's no beauty in it, no grace or joy, and the helmet on his head makes everything fuzzy and wrong. Viktor cries every time his mother picks his up from hockey practice, and for all that she tries to soothe him, it's no use. He can't see anything about the game that makes it worthwhile, but then again, the only way out is through, and maybe if he skates hard enough he'll--

He'll what? He doesn't know, but there has to be something better than this. There has to be.

There is.

Viktor is six years old when Yakov finds him. He sees the man talking to his mother, sees the wonder in her eyes, and, for a moment, Viktor wonders what's going on. But then Yakov turns to him and something in Viktor--something in his _magic_ \--calls out for this man, and Viktor knows that whatever he asks, Viktor will agree.

The skates are all wrong at first, nothing like the sturdy strength of hockey skates, but Viktor is a quick study, and within a few weeks he's flying in a way that makes Yakov crack the tiniest of smiles. It makes Viktor break out in a smile of his own, wide enough to split his face, because this, here, is the reason Viktor was made to skate. Viktor was made to own the ice, to be the only one in her wide, wonderful spotlight, and he will skate and skate and skate until--

Viktor is seven years old the first time his magic hurts someone. One of the older girls--one Viktor had envied and only dreamed of ever matching--is skating at the same time Viktor is tracing idle shapes in the ice with his skate blades. She shrieks, she falls, and though it's only been a sprained wrist--nothing that will cause her any long-term damage--Yakov is glaring daggers at Viktor.

"Don't do it again," he mutters, eyes sharp and bright on Viktor. 

"I didn't mean to--"

"That doesn't matter. You're too talented and too strong to be anything but completely on your guard at all times. If you need somewhere to aim your magic, you aim it at yourself. Your magic won't hurt you, not the way it will hurt others. Don't do it again."

Quiet and cowed, Viktor nods. He doesn't skate idly anymore after that. His every move is dictated by Yakov's choreography, at least until he's twenty-three and Yakov agrees to advise instead of dictate. It's not the freedom he'd always wanted, but, for the moment, it works.

Viktor carves out a little corner of the world for himself, a corner of his country's heart, and though the world loves him, as does his country, there are those in his homeland that only see him for what he could have been. What he _should_ have been. _Russians aren't Casters_ , and Viktor knows this, knows it like he knows how to breathe, but he was born to Cast, and that is what he will do, even if he can only ever Cast on his own breath and blood. He will do what the Ice made him to do, and he will be grateful for what little reprieve his countrymen give him for his medals.

That doesn't mean it's easy. Soon enough there is no one that can match him, no one that Casts as strongly as he does, or at least none that is as married to the ice as he is. It's lonely, even with Mila and Yuri and Yakov and the rest. There's something in him, something yearning and aching for a Caster to match him in every way, even though he doubts that one exists within his reach.

(He exists. Oh, does he exist. Viktor just knows he can never reach him. Not now. Not when he walked away so stoic and quiet all those many months ago.)

So Viktor does what he always has. He skates, and he pours his magic into his breath and blood and hopes that maybe, someday, he'll find what he's always wanted. What he's always needed.

(He doesn't expect to find it on a tiny phone screen in his Moscow apartment, doesn't expect it to draw him to Japan, doesn't expect to throw caution to the wind and cross the world to chase a dream that may never be, but he will. He will. He just doesn't know it yet.)

Viktor does what he always has, even though he knows it's lonely at the top. There's nowhere else for him to go, and if the ice is all he has left, then he will make Her his the way he never thought he could. Here, now, he will skate forward, and wait for the day that She brings him the next step in his path. The path is all She gave him, and the path is all he needs, so he will follow Her will and, in the end, maybe that will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


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